Telling it Like it is

A link to what is probably the best session report ever for Monopoly.
Yehuda

BGG and me

Template tweak on my blog

I was informed by an IE user (Thanks, Simon) that my blog didn't work properly on IE due to a few errant pixel widths. I fixed this. Hopefully this didn't wreck anything on anyone else's browser.

BGG and me

My most often used Board Game Geek features are, in order:

Notification on content I have posted or tagged - If I have posted a thread or comment, or I just really like the thread, I want to know when people add comments. BGG sends me notification via email.

Active threads, sorted by game - This was much better than "recent additions", because I don't want to know about new games, new images, geeklist comments, and so on, and I want to see only one line for a thread change, not one line for each comment.

Unfortunately, this feature seems to have disappeared.

RSS notification on new forum postings - BGG allows me to receive RSS on new posts to a forum category or a specific game, new articles, new geeklists, and so on.

Game specific information - When I get a new game, I check out any rules troubles or variants that people have posted. After playing a few times, I will check out strategies or gameplay issues.

My BGG - I review my contact information, game ratings, and comments here. If I've played anything new, I add it to the ratings. I also like to see if anyone has added me to their Geekbuddy list.

Latest/Popular Geeklists - I check occasionally.

Top rated game list - Checked when I am in the market for new games.

BoardGameSpeak - I've heard most.

Auctions/Marketplace/Trades - I check rarely, but not never. The marketplace is always too highly priced for me. The auctions can be nice, since I usually only have to pay GeekGold. And trading is hard.

Other - I played T&E on the Geek a few times. I've also answered some "Why did the Geek?" and Geekquestions, when I'm really bored.

The new BGG

Of course, I owe a large part of my gaming and a lot of my online game presence to BGG, so I don't feel any immediate need to criticize when things are changed. So long as they work and are not too annoying.

So the first thing I did after the latest change to the site was to configure my home page: Recently viewed (left col, a nice new feature), News + Recent Geeklists(30) + Recent Marketplace(20) (center col), Recent Forums(20) + Recent Game Forums(20) (right col).

I'm not happy with the increase in ads on the front page (4 places on the page is a bit much) followed by asking readers for a donation to remove them. That strikes me as a questionable business model. But I can hardly complain. I've contributed content to them, and they've given me useful access to content from others, so the relationship is still good. Not to mention that they throw a great con, and they're both super nice people.

Yehuda

Now Voting for JIB Awards

Click above to vote in the first round of Jewish and Israeli blog awards. One of my posts is nominated for best post. They still have it mislisted as written by "BGG.con/Yehuda". What can you do?

They have a strange voting procedure: The public votes for their favorites, and the top six in each category make it to a second round of voting. Strange: you can vote every three days. Strange: you vote for your favorite from column A and/or from column B in each category, which pits certain blogs against each other based on their alphabetic order. Strange: This seems to open up lots of opportunity for shill voting.

Vote away.

Yehuda

Technorati Tags: Jewish, Israel, JIB Awards

Sleepy Yinsh

After a sudden reacquainting with an old friend from college a few weeks ago, I received yet another sudden reacquainting from another old friend from college who is/was in Israel for a few days: L'vannah Bielsker.

The last time she was in Israel, it happily coincided with my wedding. That was eight and a half years ago. She was able to drop in this time for Sunday night dinner at the same time that my mom-in-law was packing up to leave. We had a nice chat while the rest of my family watched Madagascar in the background. They laughed the whole time, so it must have been amusing.

L and I traded info about our old Cornell friends, her life and teaching, and so on. After college, she hiked in Alaska for several summers chasing eagles, taught in Italy for two years, did residency in Costa Rica, and spends her free time hiking in the mountains and along California's coastline. Now she teaches high school Biology and Chemistry. She is still one of the most beautiful women I've ever met (my photo doesn't do her justice). After achieving almost everything she ever wanted, I think she is finally looking to meet someone to marry. If you're Jewish and traditional and looking to meet someone special in her thirties, let me know.

Eventually I brought out a small game just to show her what I "do". I like Yinsh, but I'm not good at it, so I thought it would be a good easy intro. L was already starting to fall asleep (it was about 10:30 pm) before she started playing. She placed disks slowly and sleepily, removing one of her rings first. I followed with two, and then she took a second.

At this point I realized that there was no way she could drive back to Tel Aviv to finish packing without getting a little rest first. I put her to bed for an hour, but she woke up after twenty minutes feeling refreshed enough to go. Hopefully she will return again, this time in less than eight years.

Yehuda

Guess who just lost his cellphone?

Somewhere between Ramat Gan and Jerusalem. *grumble* *grumble*

Only a week left to vote for the Board Game Internet Awards. We have lots of nominations for some categories, but a few could use a little more competition:

Best Series of Posts

Best New Blog, Podcast, or Videocast (2005)

Best Strategy Article (2005)

Best Online Journal or Magazine (maybe there aren't that many?)

Best Promotional or Advocacy Article (2005)

Best New Site (2005)

Best Session Report (2005)

Best Humorous Article (2005)

Please get your nominations in this week!

Yehuda

As Long As We're Linking 4

My my, they just keep on coming ...

This article follows As Long As We're Linking 3, As Long As We're Linking 2, and As Long As We're Linking 1.

These are links to board game bloggers who actually have something to say, or are very new and look like they might have something to say sometime soon. They also say it frequently enough for me to want to check on them. If you use bloglines, you don't really have to worry about checking on them, but I like to give props to people who really keep their blogs active.

Here are the changes since last time. And this little article from Dana Blankenhorn who proves that he doesn't know how to play Risk doesn't count.

A Weblog: Mark Hamzy, Texas. Apparently plays games with the Rozmiarek's of the Game Ranch. Many pictures, closeup and fuzzy. Also disk golf.

Best of Board Games: A cooperative blog that links to their favorite articles from other blogs and the geek. Replaces the Best of the Blogosphere postings by Alfred.

Board Games with Scott: Scott Nicholson, Syracuse, NY. A video blog demonstrating games.

Bruno Faidutti News: Bruno Faidutti is a premier game designer in France. Great site. His feed gives updates to his site.

Critical Gamers.com: A group blog of some sort. Promises new and more frequent content, soon.

Day Gaming: John Gravitt, Texas. Another gamer playing with Rozmiarek.

Duly Exhausted: This is the new name of Anye's blog (formerly Diet Evil, Dancing Eggplant).

The Game Shelf: This is a new URL for Doctor J's blog.

Gaming with Fish: Someone named Fishbulb, from West Virginia. Only posts once a month, so far, but interesting.

Gaming Report: Primarily an RPG/CCG site, with some info on board games, occasionally.

NeverEndingBooks: Lieven le Bruyn, Belgium. A math researcher, starting to do analysis of games. Try his game related feed: http://www.neverendingbooks.org/index.php/category/games/feed/atom/ .

Spotlight on Games: Rick Heli, San Francisco, CA. A huge site with many reviews and articles. Now a feed.

Taxovich: Taxovich (name?), Salt Lake City, Utah. A student, just starting to blog.

Traditional Game Reviews: Daniel Smatt, Missoula, Montana. A game store owner, posting game reviews. Last one was in November, but here's hoping for more.

Traveling in Multiverse: Ricky, Hong Kong. Another very new blog finding its wings. I'm waiting to see if it will fly.

The Vintage Gamer: Promises to be a podcast about pre-1990 games.

Enjoy,
Yehuda

Technorati Tags: board games, board game, games, board game blogs, game blogs, blogs,

Weekend Gaming

Friday night I played Scrabble with my mom-in-law. She is a kind person; too kind. She plays by allowing everyone to play with eight letters, letting people look through the dictionary while tying to find words, no time-clock, replacing blanks with letters from your own hand, and so on. All to make it easier on the people playing, and "more fun".

In my humble opinion, this also removes a lot of the tension from the game. No bluffing, no challenges. I had seven letter bingos in my hand several times but they were not bingos with eight letters. I managed to get a full nine-letter bingo: "mortified", which helped me win the game.

Also beware of some new words in fourth edition Scrabble include: "qi", and "za".

Om Friday night dinner we had an unexpected four guests who had walked to the area for shul and wanted to stay in the area for a shiur (learning session) but hadn't arranged previously to do so. Rachel invited the kit and caboodle for dinner. Amazingly, we had enough food.

One of the guests writes area articles for the Jerusalem Post and expressed interest about writing up our board game group for the newspaper. That could be interesting.

Sat afternoon, two of these people, and two others again showed up at 4:30 asking if they were too late for yet another shiur which they thought was in our house (because Rachel teaches it). However, the shiur was about ten minutes away, is an hour long, and had started 30 minutes previously. Oops.

How about a game?

So I introduced them all to For Sale. For Sale is not a game that I liked when I first received it: a little too slight, and while I love blind bidding, I want the blind bidding to be part of a larger game. However, For Sale is an easy game to teach, accommodates 3-6 people, and is quick. As I've been bringing it out to teach a lot of new people, the game has grown on me.

My fellow players, playing their first non-traditional game (or so I thought), spent more time talking about the houses than actually playing. But we managed to finish the game and they seemed to enjoy it. The winner has won just about every house as second place winner, and then won just about every check as second place winner. She won by a minor landslide: 67, 56, 52, 39.

It then turned out that one of them was German. I asked her if she could translate the rules to the game Sticheln that I had also received a while ago, but had never played due to it not having an English translation (yeah, I could probably find it on the geek, but I haven't looked, yet).

She tried, but although she could read the German, she had a very difficult time with rules in general, so she couldn't translate it easily. While she was struggling through it, I decided that we should play a game of David and Goliath using the same cards. There's another quick game that is easy enough to explain and play.

It then transpired that our German guest knew the game Settlers of Catan, and had played some games with her family back in Germany, such as Through the Desert, and probably others. I invited her (and all of them) back for Wed night games. We shall see.

Yehuda

Technorati Tags: board games, board game, games